Richard and others fail to see how a *general labor machine* is qualitatively distinct from every other form of automation that has been developed in history.
We have historically automated *tasks*, but not *labor* itself
The question of whether AI can actually become the Universal Labor Replacing Machine remains an open one—it’s certainly not there yet—but the implications for a world in which it *did* are very obviously different than with previous automation technologies
@hecubian_devil Basically, it was the ultimate cover for capital. Change without actual change. Because real change involves self sacrifice, working towards a common goal, leftism I think became good at hurting itself and thinking that was real change.
One of the more fascinating things about Woke 1 is how much of it was focused on discomfort and suffering as positive goods.
Because radical change always makes some people anxious, and makes the losers of the struggle unhappy, many progressives started to see it as a sign of radical bonafides and effective practice to inspire anxiety and discomfort and unhappiness—or even fear, pain, and grief. “If we are making people miserable, we must be doing something right!”
Of course the idea is absurdly lazy, a very obvious conflation of byproducts with causal forces—a backwards genealogy—but it was also super fucking convenient for a bunch of progressives who aspired to the identity of capital-R Radical, but had neither the ability nor will to enact genuinely radical change. It’s much, much easier to antagonize people close to you—in fact, you can convince many of the people who agree with you to *volunteer* for your moral punishment, and they’ll even thank you afterwards!
It was all a kind of kayfabe; nothing radical was happening, but because someone was suffering and unhappy it could be presented as radical action—yet everyone involved was already on the same side. The confrontation was completely fake.
I think our appetite for this sort of thing has diminished but it’s not completely gone, tbh.
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The ultimate goal of activism is to heal and/or create. If your activism does neither, then your activism’s only effect is, logically and immitigably, destruction. At that point you are a danger to any social group you come in contact with and must be excised like a cancer.
Yes, some leftists can indeed be very neurotic and bullying toward other leftists. The discourse about this reminds us that something gets lost when we choose to blame all our stress and psychological dysfunction on the system.
While it is true that the financial stress, needless toil and pervasive sense of meaninglessness that people experience under capitalism does dramatically deteriorate psychological wellbeing, we all still have a responsibility to try our best to be decent people and come to a reasonable amount of peace within ourselves. People in leftist spaces who use conflict and puritanical moralism to masturbate their drama addictions and distract from their inner misery are not being responsible with their pain.
Part of growing up and becoming a mature adult is accepting that sometimes the problem is in you, and taking seriously your responsibility to fix that problem. If you're experiencing a lot of conflict and drama in your personal life or online, then you're the common denominator in that equation, and it means you could use some inner work. Take a break from social media, begin a disciplined practice which helps you come to inner peace, and find some methodologies which help you heal your inner wounds. It's not okay for you to keep harming and distressing the people around you with your inner condition, no matter how correct your politics happen to be.
The tendency in some leftist circles to externalize all our problems and always make our distress about an abusive system or a politically imperfect comrade creates a kind of learned helplessness where we assume all our suffering is completely beyond our control. In fact it is entirely possible to come to a great degree of inner tranquility and joy even in the midst of this brutal dystopia, as long as you're willing to take responsibility for your inner wellbeing and do the work necessary to get there.
Healing is very possible. I say this as someone who has needed to do a whole lot of it. If you take this reality seriously and accept your responsibility to do something about it, you can become a much more effective opponent of the empire, and a much more pleasant person to be around.
If you are depressed, you should probably start your day by a walk outside and then consume:
-Some type of wisdom (Bible, philosophy etc)
-3-4 eggs
-1tbsp cacao
-5grams of glutamine
-1-2tsps of raw honey
-Some Ceylon cinnamon
*You can add whey as well and some kefir if your gut allows it
-Some gelatine made with something high in vitamin C -1-2 grams of taurine
-Methylated B complex
-2-5mg of lithium orotate
-Saffron (at 30mg)
-Probiotics (this is more context depended (use the search function in my profile))
followed by writing, meditating/praying or painting (doesn't matter if you are good, just do it for 10 minutes) and some gratitude practise.
Yes this might initially sound dumb, but why not provide the building blocks your body needs in order to be happy by default first thing in the morning?
Because anything from retinol and choline all the way to PLP, B9 and lithium affects our mood quite a lot.
This is definitely a sensitive topic, but I scrolled past this on Tiktok thinking it was a Maki cosplay with realistic burns. Now I'm realizing what it actually is, and I do find it interesting how an anime/manga has seemingly helped to normalize burns/scarring. I can't go in
We have the complete opposite problem - that so many people have created so many moral and ethical stories about the current moment and how we got here that it is *functionally impossible* to build a coalition without returning to the one common denominator, material circumstance